OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Palestinian Bashiti family, one of the prominent families in the occupied city of Jerusalem, have asserted Thursday that the land on which the Hurva synagogue was built belongs to them and that they have the title-deeds to prove their claim.

Dr. Subhi Al-Bashiti informed the PIC correspondent in Jerusalem that the family was in a continuous struggle with the successive Israeli occupation governments to retrieve their land after the Zionists confiscated it after the 1967 war.

He added that he has the authentic title-deeds endorsed by the Ottoman and the Jordanian authorities, adding that the Israeli occupation government tried to convince the family to sell the land or to exchange it with another land but the family refused, thus leading to the Israeli confiscation of the land by force under a military order on 18 April 1968, file number 1443, page 1238 for public use.

He added that his family purchased the land in 1880 and declared it as an Islamic endowment, pointing out that he protested the Israeli renovation of the synagogue on his own land but the Israeli authorities ignored the protest.

He explained that his grandfather Sheikh Hasan Al-Bashiti bought the land in 1880 after the 18th century synagogue was gutted by fire and the small Jewish community living in Jerusalem at the time could not rebuild it, so they put it up for sale.

Furthermore, Bashiti revealed that his family contacted King Hussein of Jordan and King Al-Hassan II of Morocco to help the family in this issue but, he added, both governments failed in stopping the Israeli plans in building the synagogue on his family’s land.

Bashiti stressed that his family won’t relax their struggle to retrieve the land, urging the Palestinian authority and international and Arab popular organizations to politically and financially help them in this course.

Moreover, Bashiti underscored that none of the Palestinian families in Jerusalem accepted the Israeli offer to sell their land despite the tremendous pressure exerted by the IOA on this families.

According to Israeli sources, the construction of the Hurva synagogue was the introduction for the construction of the alleged third temple on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque.

The inauguration of the synagogue on Tuesday sparked widespread protest in the Palestinian street in occupied Jerusalem and in Gaza Strip, however, Palestinians in the West Bank were banned by Abbas’s forces to carryout any demonstration to protest the Israeli practices in Jerusalem.